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Intense floods have killed dozens of people and left hundreds homeless in Pakistan as heavy monsoon rains battered the country, officials said, Aljazeera reported.

In the southern province of Balochistan, 57 people, including women and children, were killed after being swept away in rising flood waters, Ziaullah Langove, the disaster and home affairs adviser to the province’s chief minister, said on Saturday.

Eight dams had burst due to the heavy rains, Langove said.

Hundreds more people were left homeless after their homes collapsed under the rain and flood waters, he said, adding that the torrential monsoon rains were continuing.

In Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province two people, including a six-year-old, died and four were injured when their house collapsed, according to a district official statement.

Heavy rains have lashed Pakistan in recent days, leaving large swathes of the largest city, Karachi, inundated with water.

Pakistan’s Navy said it was joining efforts to evacuate citizens and deliver rations and fresh water in Balochistan, according to Aljazeera.

In 2010, the worst floods in memory affected 20 million people in Pakistan, with damage to infrastructure running into billions of dollars and huge swaths of crops destroyed as one-fifth of the country was inundated.

Seasonal monsoon rains, a lifeline for farmers across South Asia, also typically cause deaths and property damage every year.

Pakistan has received 87 percent more rain this monsoon season so far compared with past years, according to the Environment and Climate Change Ministry.

In neighbouring Afghanistan, 24 people have been killed by floods in the east and south of the country, a disaster management agency spokesman said on Friday.

Monsoon rains last month also caused widespread flooding in northeastern Bangladesh and India, stranding some six million people and killing dozens. The flooding in Bangladesh was described by a government expert as potentially the country’s worst since 2004.

India and Bangladesh have also experienced more frequent extreme weather events in recent years, causing large-scale damage.

Environmentalists warn climate change could lead to more disasters, especially in low-lying and densely populated Bangladesh, Aljazeera reported.

A person died in a motorbike accident at Captanbarichok in Arjundhara Municipality-6 of Jhapa on Sunday.

The deceased has been identified as Kumar Khanal (25) of Phidim Municipality-5, Panchthar.

Police said that the incident occurred after Khanal lost control of the bike (Ba 42 Pa 128) and fell some seven feet down the road.

Further investigation into the incident is underway, police said.

India has logged 18,257 new coronavirus infections in a day taking the tally of cases to 4,36,22,651. The active cases increased to 1,28,690, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated at 8 am stated. With 42 new fatalities, the toll climbed to 5,25,428, The Economic Times reported.

The active cases comprise 0.30 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.50 per cent, the ministry said. 

An increase of 3,662 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 4.22 per cent while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 4.08 per cent, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,29,68,533, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.20 per cent. 

According to the ministry, 198.76 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive, according to the Economic Times.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. 

The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23 last year.

Elon Musk is seeking to end his $44bn (£36bn) bid to buy Twitter, alleging multiple breaches of the agreement, BBC reported.

The announcement is the latest twist in a long-running saga after the world’s richest person decided to buy Twitter in April.

Mr Musk said he had backed out because Twitter failed to provide enough information on the number of spam and fake accounts.

Twitter says it plans to pursue legal action to enforce the agreement.

“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk,” Twitter chairman Bret Taylor wrote in a tweet, setting up a potentially long and protracted legal battle between the two sides, according to BBC.

The original merger agreement includes a $1bn (£830m) break-up fee.

Row over fake accounts

In May, Mr Musk said the deal was “temporarily on hold” as he was awaiting data on the number of fake and spam accounts on Twitter.

The billionaire businessman had asked for evidence to back the company’s assertion that spam and bot accounts make up less than 5% of its total users.

In a letter filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr Musk’s lawyer said Twitter had failed or refused to provide this information.

“Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information,” the letter reads, BBC reported.

Spam accounts are designed to spread information to large numbers of people and manipulate the way they interact with the platform. On Thursday, Twitter said it removed around 1 million such accounts each day.

Mr Musk believes that spam or bot accounts could account for 20% or more of Twitter users.

Shares in Twitter fell by 7% in extended trading after the announcement.